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About Haka House
Haka House is a group of friendly hostels that are nestled in travel-worthy spots all over New Zealand, providing a home away from home to all adventurous explorers. With 14 laid-back hostels, guests can enjoy snug rooms, handy amenities and some of the best views right at their doorstep.
Haka House is more than a place to stay – it's a place where travellers meet, share stories, and celebrate the local Māori culture and traditions together. All Haka House hostels embrace eco-friendly practices like using solar power and outfitting their cosy retreats with bedding made from recycled plastics. It's the kind of initiative that has turned over 160,000 discarded bottles into snuggly duvets.
Mews has enabled us to create a world class, guest-centric ecosystem that boosts efficiency and gives us real-time data to grow our business.
Rebuild, rebrand, relaunch 🏆
Challenge
In October 2022, Haka House acquired nine former YHA properties that had been closed for over two years, many in remote environments and challenging weather conditions. The project involved implementing brand new systems and repairing key facilities, all while working on an extensive rebranding.
Solution
Supported by Mews, the Haka House team redefined their customer experience proposition and adopted a group reservation model. They replaced manual processes, which were far from guest-centric, with a lean and integrated suite of Mews business tools: PMS, POS, Kiosk, Payments, and BI reporting. Mews also seamlessly integrates with the Haka House Customer app, handling pre-arrival check-ins and payments, as well as issuing digital keys to rooms and communal spaces. Optimizing the website was a key part of the rebranding effort. This has yielded excellent results, with HiJiffy, an AI-driven chatbot, driving booking conversions and ensuring 24/7 customer support.
Result
• 4% full funnel conversion rate (2% is considered great)
• 21% online check-in rate
• 50% improvement on bounce rate and time on site
“Mews helps us fulfill our purpose – creating genuine connections between our Manuhiri (guests) and Manaki (hosts), our land and our culture through exceptional travel experiences.”
Speedy and efficient staff training, even in remote locations
Challenge
In addition to staffing shortages, managing hostels in remote areas makes it challenging to recruit and train staff. Teaching them to use a PMS takes up valuable time and energy from already busy colleagues.
Solution
Implementation with Mews can be done remotely, bringing down costs and speeding up onboarding time. Training with Mews University was a game-changer for Haka House, enabling remote teams across 14 properties to learn the system. Combined with video training, their teams could quickly and efficiently upskill while adopting the new tech suite. Role-specific learning paths empowered them to navigate Mews Hospitality Cloud independently, ensuring confident platform usage across the board.
Result
• Fast and remote staff training across 14 properties
A scalable tech stack that drives growth
Challenge
Before Mews, Haka House struggled with a lack of actionable data to drive their business forward. The team wanted easy, immediate access to their data. Building an integrated tech ecosystem was also high on their priority list.
Solution
Mews offers a wide selection of easy-to-use reports. Haka House enjoys free, immediate access to all hostel data, including reservations, availability, room/bed status and customer information. From distribution to revenue management, they’ve connected various hospitality solutions across multiple departments via Mews Marketplace. The best part? The team can integrate their tech directly into the Mews ecosystem, relying on automation to avoid manual data migration. These streamlined, data-rich integrations provide a much greater understanding of the metrics that drive their business.
Result
• 20+ dynamic reports in Mews, easily accessed from property dashboard
• 10+ integrations
• A flexible tech stack built on hospitality’s best solutions
“For ambitious brands like ours, scaling efficiently is a top priority. Mews removed any friction caused by slow staff training and manual data transfer.”
Integration spotlight
Averaging ten integrations per property, Haka House seamlessly blends modern tech with guest-centric features, elevating the overall experience for visitors.
Thynk
As a customer-centric meeting, events and venue management software, Thynkprovides a full 360° view on MICE operations, acting as a central place for Haka House to manage these operations. The solution relies on automation and data management to reduce administration and increase productivity, with the help of a direct connection with Mews to create and update reservations, guest profiles and more.
Duetto
Duetto can provide rate recommendations and restrictions to the Haka House team through a two-way integration with Mews. Reservation data is delivered into the Duetto platform and, along with other data points, is used to calculate and deliver optimized pricing directly into Mews.